Ahead of next year’s assembly elections, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government plans to revise a proposed food security law to bring it in line with a previous draft that is deemed more liberal, and expedite its execution. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who also heads the National Advisory Council (NAC) that drafted the initial National Food Security Bill, has suggested some crucial changes to the version that was made public...

In Gorakhpur, thousands have become a burden on their poor families Lack of rehabilitation facilities for thousands of children, disabled here after a Japanese encephalitis attack, has made life a burden for them. Already reeling under acute poverty, these children are now an economic burden on their families. The monthly allowance given by the Uttar Pradesh Government to the disabled in 2005-06 was abruptly discontinued. “Life is worse than hell for my...

-PTI   As many as 5,484 children were sexually assaulted and 1,408 others killed in different parts of the country last year, according to a government report. Giving a gloomy picture about the crimes committed against children, the latest National Crime Records Bureau data says 10,670 children were also kidnapped or abducted during the year in various states and union territories. In Uttar Pradesh, 315 children were killed while 1,182 children were sexually assaulted...

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday dubbed as completely bogus Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's charge that his letter seeking her concurrence for a CBI probe into alleged embezzlement of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) funds was politically motivated. Reacting to Ms. Mayawati's letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Ramesh denied her charge of taking up with her the fraud committed in seven districts — siphoning...

Medical facilities have collapsed as encephalitis epidemic continues to rage Even as the rest of India recovers from Deepavali celebrations, residents of Poorvanchal have been marking a grim time that descends on the eastern Uttar Pradesh region each year: a time local people call the season of death. Ever since July, 470 people, mostly children, have died of viral encephalitis and its biological cousin, Japanese encephalitis — the first caused by a...